Cops scamming tourists at Bangkok airport

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7-22-2009 @ 2:34PM

nilpojsinaj@netscape.net said...

Here is a good true one. I got off the train in Rome, Italy, when I saw about 8 kids starting to run to me. I had my backpack (large) on, with hiking boots. I said out loud, in Italian, "Fermarsi! (stop!). A small kid, I assumed was the leader, stopped, and asked me why? I said, "Ladro! (thief)," as I gave him the international signal of pickpocketing, hand outstretched, as in a hand shake, then pulling it in with a twist. The kid smiled, laughed, gave me the Italian salute (arm going up, with left arm interceding), yelled to his friends, "Correre! (run!)." They were going to surround me, and stick their hands everywhere, knock me down, and run with what they could find. With a big backpack, hard to get up and give chase, unless you unbuckle, and then someone gets your pack. I just shook my head. I reported this to a police officer, who simply said, "Welcome to Rome," in Italian, with a smile.

7-22-2009 @ 5:05PM

Equity25 said...

I too had always heard about the child pickpockets in Rome. After several times there, dulely warned, I got on a local bus and was forced to go through a bunch of well dressed men at the door to get off. By the time I got through the door and the buss pulled off I was relieved of my walet and credit cards of which $3,000.00 + were charged that night. Lesson learned: Don't be so intent on the kids when it is the adults that may be robbing you blind. Jack

7-23-2009 @ 2:45AM

Adizzle said...

I was student studying abroad in Italy when I took a trip to Rome for the weekend. I knew the warnings of pick pocketers, and so I always held onto my purse in front of me wherever I went. My boyfriend (now husband) who was visiting me, and I had spent like an hour trying to find the Colluseum and after walking so much and not finding it somehow we were tired and mad and on a train back to our hostil. I wasn't holding on to my purse but I felt something next to me and the guy next to me was trying to reach into my purse. He was dressed like he was a tourist even though he looked Italian, complete with a "Rome" baseball cap. I just looked at him and said "what the hell?" and then he just started saying "crazy". I hadn't accused him of anything so he obviously had attempted to rob me by his reaction. I was lucky that time. My roommate's father who decided to wear a belly bag on the a train in Rome was not.

7-23-2009 @ 2:09PM

nilpojsinaj said...

I'll add one more, about 1981. On a train to Amsterdam, I was with my military buddy, traveling Europe together. There was a guy sitting next to us who was worried about losing his wallet to pickpockets. I had a front wallet strapped under my shirt, next to my t-shirt. Before getting off the train at Amsterdam, I kid you not, we were warned on a P. A. system to watch out for pickpockets as we exited the train, in like over 6+ languages! Well, we stepped off the train, and within minutes that guy yelled out to us, "hey! my wallet is missing!." I checked myself, and mine was okay. We felt sorry for the guy. If asked, I have the biggest one yet, that made the news on television, about Italy.

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